this kind of bird This kind of bird flies backwards & this kind of love breaks on a window pane -Diane di Prima this kind of bird doesn't believe in mason jars-- this kind of bird leaves their love out on the kitchen counter like tomatoes or bananas that brown in the windowsill heat-- let's make banana bread together & slice it while it's still warm-- this kind of bird doesn't save 'i love you's like marmalade-- orange smile with me-- keep a lid on my tongue & i'll spit out a mouth full of robin feathers-- this kind of bird sleeps in hydrangea bushes-- blushes permanently like a white peach-- what kind of toast do you want when we wake up in the morning? this kind of bird builds wings from dead leaves & honey-- practices falling instead of flying-- drops her//himself like a rubber ball becoming the moon-- dive into the creek-- this kind of bird hides beneath rocks & learns to speak crayfish-- i love you like crumpled socks by the door-- like warped umbrella wires-- like a mouth full of street light from the window-- this kind of bird breaks promises like kitkats-- shares apologies to every clover in the back yard-- have you ever seen a bird lay on their back? stare up into the sun with me-- we'll make our knees into match sticks-- this type of bird flies backwards but only so he can catch the cherry pit you're going to drop & planet it so that it will grow into a peach tree one day-- this kind of bird fell heavy as a crock pot-- broke on the kitchen floor & loved himself enough to pick up these hunks of ceramic that at one point made up my hips-- this kind of bird has a butter knife for a tongue-- this kind of bird pushed herself from the nest-- this kind of bird speaks only in love poems typed on noisy type-writers clacking from each of her teeth-- this kind of bird this kind of bird this kind of bird flies out of the mason jar-- flies forward-- flies backward-- flies into your mouth-- flies up stream with the salmon-- flies behind the red knots up the coast from mexico-- flies over the shrugged shoulder of the appalachians-- flies to the bottom of the Marianas trench-- flies to the center of the earth to plant a feather like a flag flies back to the windowsill-- eats M & Ms from the bird feeder & lays on his back to watch the moon drop-- gentle like a rubber ball in the driveway-- i love you like banana bread & not like marmalade-- like bruised tomatoes-- like clovers & kitkats-- this kind of bird falls backwards & breaks on the kitchen floor-- rebuilds his wings on the porch by the street lamps--
08/24
sleepwalk tightrope & these furious butterflies i'm opening a nightlight to empty myself of all these furious butterflies & legless beetles & segmented worms with eye lash knees-- i wait balled up-- a pair of mismatched socks-- i learn to pray with my mouth open-- swallow the moon like a sleeping pill & tie the tight rope between my index finger & my thumb-- i come from a long line of tightrope walkers & my first steps were taken over niagara falls while my parents held the rope at both ends & falling was welcome & inevitable-- when my chest fills up with raging insects i think to myself if only i could take out my heart & rewind it-- pinch its wings together & close my eyes long enough to stop my ribs from scurrying away from the rest of me-- i walk right up to the moon balanced on the taunt rope & i sit in the curve of the crescent like a hammock-- rock wooden moon-- spit out the last pieces of centipede ankles & moth necks-- i'll walk back down from this tight rope tied between my index finger & thumb-- i walk everywhere on a memory of my father's rusty guitar strings-- i wear a jupiter beetle tucked beneath my tongue like a pearl-- oh & all these furious butterflies that wing beat beneath my chest fly out to give the leaves their shadows & i finally fall asleep-- slip from the cupped palm of the crescent moon to land like a rock dropped down into the great falls-- my body evaporated in pounding water & i swarm in raving furious mists--
08/23
how far can you spit a cherry pit? when i say i'm falling for you i mean i want to lean up against you like an umbrella by the door-- open me inside when it rains & the ceilings leak with thunder. i'll catch the pits from these peaches & plums & nectarines before they hail on our heads-- their clamor drops like marbles on the kitchen floor & i'll laugh when the trees start to take root-- snap tiles-- churn carpet & all the water trickles down the back steps when i say i'm falling for you i mean i want to spit cherries pits with you from the back steps. i mean take a handful of these little stone fruits with me & i'll tell you about how my skin tastes-- i bleed bruises from in between my own teeth & i learned to keep cherries in my pockets in case i ever want to promise something-- we take turns aiming at the tops of the trees but we have to be careful not to knock down a star from the mantle-- plant your stones with your thumb nudged into the dirt out behind the house & if a star should break on the kitchen floor pick up all the pieces even the bruised ones-- i want to promise you these pits are going to become trees & that we'll come to know each other when they bloom in april-- catch flowers on our tongues & watch them melt & in july when the cherries are fat i want to tell you we'll pick them & fix cherries in the sky like tea lights-- spend the night spitting rocks & witnessing some take root even in the black dirt around the moon-- how far can you spit a cherry pit? i want mine to land in one of those galaxies that looks like a bruise or a spilled bowl of blueberries that got stepped on-- & i want to promise you that our thumbs & our mouths are capable of planting trees-- that we are the ones who built their limbs out of cherry pit vows spit into the dirt of moons-- when i say i'm falling for you i mean my pockets are full of stones-- my mouth is red from wanting to kiss you-- all flowers have melted on my tongue & i want to be your umbrella by the door-- your fist around a star-- your cherry pit snapping open into the weak green neck of a tree
08/22
erosion i want to erode mountains with you-- i don't remember a lot from 9th grade physical science but i do remember that the rocky mountains are supposedly getting taller each year while the appalachians are getting smaller as a part of the process of erosion-- the rain pours over the rocks-- our faces-- smoothing out our jutting edges-- our noses become smooth boulders to knock into each other tight as knee bones in the joints of this mouth-- open wide & show me your evergreen teeth-- snap rocks with root & tongue-- oh & then came the ice as early as October here-- creeping inside the freckles of the limestone & expanding to the size of the moon or your own body on a july night when you turn 18 years old & wonder why your body has yet to turn into a star or at least a dying mountain-- you wait patiently but your femurs are stone-- the process of erosion is a story of linking elbows & burying your arm bones in your own backyard-- a story of crawling beneath the boulder & sacrificing the skeletons from inside our ears-- i don't know you yet but i want to ask you to take your feet & with me-- become a process of my erosion-- let's wear down these appalachians-- watch the mountain side shrink to fit inside the palms of our hands-- hold the tiny mountains up to our ears like conch shells & listen for the faint call of a hawk-- set out our shrunken summits on our desks & write each other into stories-- into femurs-- into stone to be eroded by rain & each other's canvas shoes-- let's kiss these peaks back into the earth-- unbury our arm bones from the backyard & feel ourselves ever so slowly eroding into stars--
08/21
in preparation for our lives by flashlight we built a blanket fort & called it the moon-- stole our mother's bed sheets from the river-- hauled them in with all our hands while the morning was still just a blush on our cheek bones-- pulled the clothespins from the wire outside & watched as all our dresses blew away like dandelion tufts or white blossoms from the plum trees growing in the courtyard-- we pinned them up until everyone on earth was having the same sleep over that none of our parents had agreed to-- this is how we came upon the eclipse-- our blanket fort in front of the sun only none of us knew how to take it down & after two hours had passed we all began to worry we had succeeded in our mischievous endeavors to put a lid on the sun-- by flashlight we all gathered in backyard-- shown lights on faces & told stories about the heat of the sun on our bodies-- the waves off the sidewalk in august-- by the third day we passed around matches & struck them one by one as if to make silent prayers for the sun to return-- each of us making our own attempts to pull down the blanket fort & all our mothers warned us not to play with her bed sheets-- from the bottom branch of the maple tree we kiss someone who we can barely see-- we think we could be in love if we had enough time to shine our flash lights on each other's faces-- but it's hard to hold a flash light & climb a tree & we say that when the sun comes back again we'll find each other & see what our faces look out of darkness-- we gave up on street lights & those fake candles in the windows-- & eventually the light bulbs began to recede into the perpetual night-- little dying stars in each household-- our world became the inside of a closed umbrella-- we filled our hands with rain & dump our palms into the river to coax the blankets back to where they came from-- oh & over year after year for some reason our flashlights never failed & long after i am gone & have given up looking for boys i've kissed on the bottom branches of maple trees our children will maybe glance where our sun was-- put their grandfather's flashlight to their face & ask what ever happened to the great light in the sky that had the strength to make the morning blush & the asphalt splash in waves
08/20
if i were an absurd sculpture in the park if i were an absurd statue in the park i would be rusted & half-smiling like the moon & on an august night when everyone feels like they're evaporating-- people might mistake me for a malformed tree limb or a fragment of an escaped dream-- a shard of bone stolen from their rib cage to build a new person out of metal-- i become the weather-- great lips pressed up against the brass mouth piece of the morning when the dew collects all over my body-- sometimes children would wipe the water off on their sleeves-- write their names into the layer of mist-- watch their fingers become-- become gaping-mouthed tulips-- become stolen rib-bones growing into statues out of a patch of mulch-- the night time would be my favorite & i would watch you meander down between the lamp posts & you wouldn't remember the night we climbed to the top of the red plastic slide because i would be just a statue-- but i would would remember how you held me like a wooden spoon & we dipped heavy into a soupy august night to stir up the clouds-- took sips of each others teeth-- slid down the slide-- using our bodies as promises written on folded pieces of paper-- another couple kisses wild on a bench & the street lamps avert their eyes & the two of them kiss in absolute & utter darkness there in the park where the cicadas are making their way back down to the core of the earth to re-learn the love-song of the sun-- their plucking each leaf from the the trees as they go & i watch august bleed open red-- scabs off in september where i rested my legs across your lap & you cut strands of my hair off one by one to sew a husk of corn-- i'd give up my life as statue if you wanted to be a fox with me or a feral cat who lives under the older roller skating rink-- we could escape the park & ramble in the corn field-- eat kernels from the cob all through autumn-- let the combines till us into the soil & grown stalks from our bones the next year-- yes i know i would dream a lot for a sculpture in the park-- absurd & twisted like our first kiss from the top of the red slide-- but i would love to wait their & watch everything happen more slowly-- let the water peel off layer after layer of rust as if i were an eternal clementine the world was trying to open--
08/19
in attempts to fill my room when it's too quiet my bedroom becomes a mouth whose throat is just getting wider & wider-- deeper & deeper-- a trench at the bottom of the ocean gulping down more & more gallons of salt water-- a tongue stretching out like a highway for me to make my bed on-- hollow breaths echo off each tooth jutting from the walls-- it chews me up-- molars on my ear drums-- grind me into a piece of silent air-- it bends my spine like the axis of a feather-- when i can't take the quiet anymore i usually lay on my back & draw storm clouds on my ceiling using the crummy eraser on the back of my number 2 pencil-- smudgy & grey & i blow off the little pink squiggles so the cloud can take hold & start to break into a storm-- it makes the sound of static on the television & it pours down all over my bed & my bookshelves until the spines of my books come off like overripe banana peels-- i give up all your words & fill the open mouth with snow & rain & static melting into the carpet-- i get a waste basket & try to scoop them back up before they all melt away & sitting on the floor of my bed room in a sopping pile of misplaced punctuation & separated similes i cry the kind of cry that fill your whole mouth-- the kind of cry that marks the yellow stripes on the highway unfurling in your throat-- from the melting words i make a poem that doesn't sound like a poem because it doesn't rhyme-- but i don't like poetry that rhymes anyway & my poem is about the street lamp outside my window & wanting to pluck it out of the ground like a dandelion & blow all the light out of its head so that there would be a field of a thousand street lamps for me to look for you beneath-- i wipe the storm cloud off my ceiling & find a dry towel to wrap myself-- when you think of me walk out under the street light & peel off a layer of shadow so i know you were there-- outside it starts to rain & i open my window & the silence rushes out of my room & meanderings down the street on cat haunches--
08/18
where will you go inside the blue suitcase? when we used to go on vacation my suitcase was always the baby blue one that clicks shut like a great big shark's mouth taking a bite out of back seat oof my mother's station wagon packed to the ceiling with bags-- i would lean my head out the window to dip my forehead in the clouds-- the window combed my hair with teeth made of sharp flecks of sun-- i filled the suitcase with all the necessary provisions: the back flap full of beanie babies & the other flap with underwear & the one white training bra that i only wore sometimes when i felt like it-- i had one dress in case we ended up somewhere fancy & the dress was white with prints of kiwi fruit on it-- it had a ziplock pouch just for a tooth brush & "toiletries" which i thought was a funny word because it has the word "toilet" in it but it's still supposed to sound dignified & fancy-- so at night at the beach house by the light of a paper plate moon-- i opened up the suitcase & crawled inside-- let the lock click behind me & sensed my body drawn into itself-- felt the world take me under her tongue & suck on me like a lemon drop-- i thinned & melted & the moon disposed of herself-- crumpled & floating in the water-- in the morning we walked out on the dock & fished for crab with rods & hunks of squid that jiggled & smelled like ocean-- when we caught them we plopped them back into the channel only i slip some of mine into my suitcase & at night their scuttling made me feel guilty for trying to harbor the ocean-- i stole handfuls of sand-- broken shells-- stuffed in a tall thrashing reed & a horseshow crab who had been flipped over on the shore-- inside the suitcase the waves started to break-- seagulls called from their feathers & it became harder & harder to lift the thing by the handle-- i just wanted to take it all home with me-- open the suitcase up & come back to the water & the dock & the world in a thin white dress covered in kiwis-- walk on the beach while the crabs snipped at the moon turning into a boat with green lights-- i've kept it all for myself inside the blue suitcase but tonight i'm opening it up & letting the water surge out my back porch-- waves crash in the parking lot & dip my toes in the remnants of sand & on the adirondack chair i perch to ring out the salt water from each beanie baby & from the white dress now smelling like squid-- i leave the suitcase open there to air out & the moon comes down to sit inside-- i shoo her away & tell her climb back up & i'll come out & visit her when my white dress dries & the tide comes into the back steps of my house--
08/17
for those of us who have to count the stars without names this is a poem for people like me who live with a throat full of numbers-- i laugh in threes-- blink-- five times-- it takes twelve foot steps to get to the door knob-- turn it twice-- we only have one moon but i have an infinite amount of numbers to call upon & they're all lodged in my teeth-- i open the window & look out to innumerate the fragments of body outside my skin-- sometimes i count the stars with out names to pretend all this counting is adding up to something & when i fell from the window my chalk outline became a constellation made up of the un-countable borrowed stars-- i un-clipped orion's belt & made it into a sash-- filled the big dipper with peanut butter & put it in my mouth-- took off the claws of ursa major one by one until my nails were sharp enough to cut off all the tops of the trees poking into the the sky -- if you know me you know that i have the task of counting all these stars with out names-- i do so under my breath & sitting up at the end of my bed in the middle of the night when other people curl themselves up like punctuation marks-- these commas-- i sleep like a semi-colon-- wake up an asterisk-- all these numbers rotting away my teeth & i have another dream of them falling out of my skull & onto the carpet-- i count breaths & ceiling tiles & uneven squares of sidewalk-- unhinge my rib cage-- let loose the moths to knock themselves against the porch light for another evening & my father comes out & tells me to call it a night but there's still more to count-- so, there i was at the window falling out & falling out & falling out until i'm the constellation on the pavement-- i open my mouth & outcome a swarm of numbers counting each other & counting me & counting again the stars without names-- the ones that have gone dark before we could see them-- invisible & haunting the soft underbelly of the one & only moon-- we only have one moon--
08/16
in the mouth of a shadow puppet when i write my mouth opens as big as the sky & then i'm just the goldfish we won at my fifth grade carnival by throwing ping pong balls into little jars-- i push my face against the glass until it turns into a movie screen-- we're at the theater in my home town-- the one who still has a big red curtain that opens when the picture begins-- i fall as droplets of water always trickling from the ceiling & plopping onto the heads of teenagers on first dates-- i fall underneath the dilapidated seats next to popcorn & jewel-bare ring-pops & the back of an earring that a girl with red hair & short finger nails will always wonder about-- the movie ends & i watch myself leave on a date with my best friend-- we're both gay now but back then it was nice to share shoulders & walks home from school-- the screen goes dark & i crawl out from under the seat with the whole theater to myself-- i stretch out my arms & tell the ghosts to come out from behind the screen-- all the girls on first dates & dads taking their sons to see war movies & mothers watching computer animated dogs even though it makes then feel squeamish-- the blink wildly & stagger about the room in the dark-- fumbling for their seats again-- i steal the moon to use as a projector because theaters are all digital now-- screen white-- i crouch low in the little technical room & my fingers roar in shadow puppets-- i tell stories about dragons & arms that turn into snakes-- fingers that fly away from you & boys who kiss the moon-- the ghosts clap & i bow as a shadow-- in the morning they hide back behind the curtains & i walk out the front door of the theater after taking a box of raisinettes from behind the snack counter-- i eat a handful & open my mouth again wide as the sun-- i burn my tongue like this on hot planets & my own tall tall shadow
